Namasthe Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in Bothell

Update 2: (3 stars) They have picked up a lot of slack post-pandemic. Their biryanis now taste a lot like how they used to make it originally. WRT Update 1 below, they made good on the issue by explaining why the food was bad and offered the next meal for free. My recent experience has been a mixed bag. They still make good biryanis but their indo-chinese items are still pretty bad. There is noo much sauce and msg in their indo-chinese items. Curries are very hit or miss. Their kofta curries are really good but sometimes they tend to put too much cream in their curries. We ended up trashing paneer butter masala as it had too much cream and tasted like drinking milk. I would stick only with biryani at this place.

Update 1: December 2021 (1 star) This place has gone down hill. They are now serving stale food. Ordered food twice in last two months (weekdays) and both times they served stale food that tasted so bad that it was clearly a few days old. Chili Paneer was super dry and tasted like cardboard. Ordered Chicken 65 Biryani, Veg 555 Biryani, and their Special Biryani. All three of them tasted so bad that we had to throw most of the food. Chicken was dry and tasted like it was doused in MSG. It was a complete waste of our time, money, and appetite.

Original Review: 4 Jan 2021 (5 stars) The only restaurant in all of east side that makes consistently good Biryanis. Most Indian restaurants here in Seattle area lack consistency which is frustrating. Namaste has been making consistently good Biryani for past few years. Their Biryani does not taste as "authentic" Hyderabadi dum biryani but it is pretty close. The other fancy pulao type biryanis (555, 65 etc) are also pretty good. Had to remove 1 star because their family pack quantity...

Have been here 2 times and have ordered takeout twice. This place would do much better if they improve their service, the food is definitely better than most indian restaurants. I specially like their south indian non-vegetarian preparations.

Pros: Really tasty food. Would recommend their chicken chettinnad, Gongura chicken curry, goat curry and chicken lollipops. I like their indo-chinese preparations too. They are one of the few Indian restaurants open till 10pm so thats always a plus!

Cons: The one thing that bothers me here is the service. There is no distribution of work whatsoever. Both my times dining in we had to wait a long time to get the menus, to be shown to the table, getting water etc. The person managing the front desk does not seem qualified for his job. Both times I saw just one person running around looking stressed trying to get orders/serve food/get water. That is with the restaurant just half full. You'll find people just waiting to be shown to their table, asking for water multiple times. When you actually get the food the experience becomes much better but before that its not a very pleasant experience.

I hope they are able to improve the service because I really...

TL;DR: Buffet, in a pinch. But there's much better Indian food out there.

I first went to Namasthe before the pandemic lockdowns, in Redmond. It was absolutely delicious and full of flavor and spice. I used to order biryani takeout from them all the time. Unfortunately, the Bothell location is nowhere near as good. The food was just so-so, the biryani chicken was disappointingly overloaded with cardamom, and the true heat has disappeared from most of the dishes served at the buffet.

On the upside, service was excellent. Plates were cleaned, tables were bussed, customers were seated, and drinks were delivered in a speedy fashion that spoke of great restaurant experience on the part of the servers.

The buffet, though, was sad. The colors of the food was muted, the flavors were dull, and I couldn't really point to anything that I really enjoyed. Nothing was bad, per se. It just wasn't as good as it used to be. And that's a real shame.

I probably...